Wednesday, March 26, 2014

With the arts, “respectability”
always seems to be tied to having a huge hateful aversion to the
pleasure-center of our brain. This entails anything that makes you
giggle, chortle, moan or even shriek out of fright. If you feel these
emotions and all of their fun based kin, then it is NOT art. Which
you know what? Is total, foaming-at-its-fetid-mouth-bullshit. It's
this kind of elitism that I rally against, especially since it denies
so many really good and even brilliant artists the respect and
examination they deserve.

Now this rant is nothing new from me,
but with the recent passing of GWAR front man and founder, Dave
Brockie, it feels more important than ever. Especially after seeing
someone online act like they couldn't or shouldn't mourn because
basically GWAR didn't make “serious” art. Which is really sad.
First of all, Brockie died way too young at age 50 and was, by all
accounts, an incredibly sweet, funny and smart guy. I never knew him
personally but always was impressed with him in interviews, loved
GWAR in general and even made sure to note his badass turn as a
sleazy cook in the independent film “Hackjob” when I had to
review it a few years ago. (Seriously, while the film itself had some
issues, Brockie singing an R-rated version of the Kiss disco-mutated
song, “I Was Made for Loving You” is heart warming.)

Whenever things can turn weird and dark
in your real life, sometimes it is bands like GWAR that help you get
through it. We all love Leonard Cohen but you gotta have the light
hearted yin to the melancholy yang. Laughing, rocking out and getting
in touch with your inner Beavis can be tremendously healing. It's
also important to keep in mind that no one in that band was or is
dumb and provided the crude and Grand Guignol with a cheeky sense of
knowing. The world is a little less bright without Dave Brockie in
it, but the man has left behind a legacy of one of the most colorful
bands to have emerged out of the punk/metal scene that, despite what
some may have you think, actually did make some really good music.

The beauty of this world is that there
is plenty of room for every stripe of creative expression. Remember
kids, Marcel Duchamp once said that you can point at anything and
call it art. And if it was good enough for a genius like Duchamp,
then it should be good enough for all.

In others news, keep an eye out for
upcoming articles, both here and abroad, covering artists ranging
from Alejandro Jodorowsky to Actually Huizenga to Duke Mitchell and
many, many more.

In the meantime, feel free to indulge
in some of my recent article and podcast madness. Enjoy!

2 comments:

I find as I get older that I have a tougher time with art that appears to take itself too seriously or is too clean. I rarely listen to Phillip Glass anymore, but I'll listen to post-black metal that is basically a 3rd rate messy version of Phillip Glass.

If I find myself listening to something repeatedly, that is really my only qualification for liking it.

From what I knew of GWAR, they definitely looked as though the band and their audience were always having a good time.